Suffering: Avoid or Embrace?
How can I get through this? When will this end? Why me? These are the questions we tend to ask ourselves in the midst of suffering. If we are all honest, we prefer to avoid suffering rather than to embrace suffering. Suffering is a past, present, and future reality of everyone’s lives—mental, physical, emotional, relational, financial, and more… Have you ever considered that maybe our typical view and approach to suffering may be wrong?
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13
Know this: You are loved by God. Jesus embraced suffering for us. He didn’t avoid it. He chose it. He lovingly pursued us in and through His suffering.
“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV).
Know this: Love God through the pain. In suffering, our main temptation is to question, doubt, forget, or ignore God. We become content and strong in the midst of suffering when we trust in and depend upon God’s control.
“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21 ESV).
Know this: Keep loving others. In suffering, our secondary temptation is to be so self-focused and short-sighted that we forget our responsibility and joy of loving others. We gain perspective when we see everything in life as a gift, not a right. We realize that God purposefully “comforts us” in our suffering so that we seek to comfort others in sharing Jesus’ love (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
In the midst of our suffering, may we be a people who…
Never Forget Christ’s eternal love of us by embracing suffering for us.
Trust and treasure Jesus more than anything, in every situation.
Prioritize others before ourselves, even when our suffering is great.
Embrace suffering by seeking God and His purposes in whatever season of life we are in!
